Canada and Brazil moving towards visa-free travel?

Canada and Brazil could be on their way to dropping reciprocal visa requirements, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird hinted with his Brazilian counterpart on Thursday.

In a joint statement released late Thursday afternoon, Baird and Brazilian External Relations Minister Antonio de Aguiar Patriota promised to launch a bilateral dialogue on mobility issues that will help facilitate travel and migration between the countries.

They promised to schedule the first meeting of that dialogue as soon as possible.

“This is crucial for Canada and Brazil, with both countries looking to maximize the benefits of legal movement of people between the two countries as commercial, education, tourism, research and other linkages continue to expand,” they said in the statement.

Though they were short on specifics, a logical step would be to end visa requirements already in place for each other’s citizens, thereby opening up the possibility of increased tourism and business connections.

Despite having the second largest population in the western hemisphere and the seventh largest economy in the world, Brazil sent only 78,300 visitors to Canada in 2012 — substantially less than the 162,000 who came from India and who also require a visa.

Dropping the visa requirement would likely increase that number.

It might also convince Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico that the Harper government is willing to consider the free movement of people that those countries are pushing for as part of the burgeoning Pacific Alliance.